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War Games, Blackwater, KSM - Updates to the 9/11 Timeline as of March 16, 2010

The largest group of entries added to the 9/11 Timeline over the last couple of weeks concerns military exercises and the day of 9/11. FAA training exercises in December 2000 included scenarios [Bad link] and there was a Boeing 767 [Bad link] in the summer of 2001, as well as a simulated suicide terrorist attack against New York [Bad link], and a mock [Bad link] the next day. Early on the day of the attacks, [Bad link] were participating in a training exercise, and controllers at Reagan National Airport [Bad link] of the approach of Flight 77. After the Pentagon was hit, a supervisor told DC Air National Guard pilots on training to [Bad link] and the Secret Service called the guard again after Flight 93 crashed to [Bad link], but it launched his first planes with missiles [Bad link].

Another large group of new entries concerns the CIA/Blackwater assassination program that never killed anybody. The program was [Bad link] shortly after 9/11 and was not briefed to Congress [Bad link]. Blackwater, which had won a CIA contract to provide [Bad link] in 2002, became involved, but this involvement was later [Bad link]. CIA Director Leon Panetta was [Bad link] of the program in June 2009, cancelling it and immediately [Bad link], which [Bad link].

Elsewhere in counterterrorism, CIA Director George Tenet significantly expanded the agency's [Bad link] in the late '90s. The agency also built a network of [Bad link] after 9/11, but later [Bad link].

There is also more about alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed (KSM), who, under interrogation, falsely claimed a key player in the Bojinka plot, Abdul Hakim Murad, only had a [Bad link] in the conspiracy, and whose secret tortured confessions were [Bad link] in March 2004. Last year, the administration famously announced that KSM and four other defendants would be tried in a [Bad link] (whereas five other detainees would remain in military commissions), and a lawyer for one of the five then said they would plead [Bad link].

Some other new entries concern the family of Osama bin Laden, who may or [Bad link] be alive. His son Saad [Bad link] around late 2008, had his [Bad link] early next year, and was then [Bad link]. Subsequently, bin Laden's daughter Iman also [Bad link].

Finally, some of the members of the Hamburg cell worked at a local [Bad link], and a car rented by some of the other hijackers was repeatedly seen at [Bad link] in the days before 9/11.